Your Right to Know

PITTSBURGH — Gay-marriage advocates expressed outrage yesterday over a court document filed by
lawyers for Pennsylvania that likens same-sex marriage to a partnership between 12-year-olds.

Lawyers for the Pennsylvania Department of Health included the statement in their lawsuit
against a county clerk who has been issuing marriage licenses to gay couples despite a state ban on
same-sex nuptials.

“Had the Clerk issued marriage licenses to twelve-year-olds in violation of state law, would
anyone seriously contend that each twelve-year-old has a legally enforceable ‘interest’ in his ‘
license’ and is entitled to a hearing on the validity of his ’license,’ else his due process rights
be violated?” the state lawyers wrote.

Charles Joughin, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for of lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender individuals, said the statement is offensive and flawed.

“Same-sex couples enter into marriage for the same reasons as opposite-sex couples: love,
commitment and family. Children are not capable of giving consent, a critical component of legal
marriage,” Joughin said.

Pennsylvania General Counsel James Schultz said the media mischaracterized the statement.

“Contrary to recent headlines, the administration does NOT equate same-sex marriage to the
marriage of minors,” Schultz said. The state’s intention, he said, was to give examples of “other
individuals whose marriages were excluded under state law.”

But Timothy Haggerty, a historian at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh who has studied
the gay-rights movement, called the statement “incredibly condescending.”

“It’s suggesting that adult members of our society are incapable of entering into contract
because of their sexual orientation,” Haggerty said. “It’s calling gay relationships adolescent,
which has long been a tool of homophobia.”

The state sued Montgomery County Clerk D. Bruce Hanes last month to stop him from issuing
marriage licenses to same-sex couples in suburban Philadelphia, a practice he started after the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the federal government must recognize same-sex marriages in
states where it is legal.Soon after the ruling, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane
announced that she would not defend the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.